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I am sad to report that there are still people in this world who are actively doing whatever they can to prevent women from
hearing about this health information regarding the function of nutrition in the "toxemia syndrome" and other complications
of pregnancy.
In May 2007, I was forbidden from giving out this information on a pregnancy forum for mothers interested in health and fitness
in pregnancy. The reason given was that that board had its own experts and their moderators did not want to hear from me
as another "expert" (quotation marks were theirs). At the same time, their own experts seemed to not know about the Brewer
Diet, when asked about it by their members.
There is also another organization, the members of which take pride in their scientific and professional approach to the problem
of pre-eclampsia, and in which at least some of both the moderators and the members routinely ridicule, defame, and rage against
Dr. Brewer and his principles and anyone who would try to prescribe or endorse them. They also frequently write misleading
half-truths and complete untruths about the Brewer principles to anyone who would ask for information about the Brewer Diet,
and they repeat them to each other so often that they apparently have come to believe them to be true. I have responded to
many of these misunderstandings and fabrications on my "Inaccuracies" page.
See the "Inaccuracies" page of this website here
It seems that on February 14, 2008, I was banned from another pregnancy forum. I was not given any notice of this banning,
or any reasons for why it was done, or any opportunity to correct whatever I was doing incorrectly. I was trying my best
to comply with their rules, while still telling moms what they could google for to find the information that might help them.
Naturally, I am very sad to have been treated with this level of disrespect. But even more than that, I am very, very sad
for the moms out there who are being denied access to the knowledge of the full range of their options.
I am also very sad to taste in this small way what Dr. Brewer must have experienced in his 50 years of trying to communicate
this important information with his peers and the general public. The realization of how painfully exhausting that must have
been, year after year, for so many, many years, is mind-boggling.
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was ridiculed for his assertion that hand-washing would save the lives of women in the postpartum wards
of the hospitals of his day. His evidence was suppressed and defamed until years after his death, when the invention of the
microscope proved the existence of microorganisms that could contribute to illness and disease. It is one of my deepest desires
that some day soon there will be some new kind of technology that will finally reveal incontrovertibly, once and for all,
the validity of this research done by Brewer as he walked in the footprints of Hamlin, Strauss, Burke, and Ferguson, researchers
who went before him on the same path. When that happens, we will finally be able to put the brakes on this disease that needlessly
takes the lives of thousands of mothers and babies every year.
This is a portion of what Wikipedia says about Ignaz Semmelweis, one of the heroes of safe childbearing...
"While employed as assistant to the professor of the maternity clinic at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria in 1847,
Semmelweis introduced hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions for interns who had performed autopsies. This immediately
reduced the incidence of fatal puerperal fever from about 10 percent (range 5–30 percent) to about 1–2 percent.
At the time, diseases were attributed to many different and unrelated causes. Each case was considered unique, just like a
human person is unique. Semmelweis' hypothesis, that there was only one cause, that all that mattered was cleanliness, was
extreme at the time, and was largely ignored, rejected or ridiculed. He was dismissed from the hospital and harassed by the
medical community in Vienna, which eventually forced him to move to Budapest.
Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters
to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his
wife, believed he was losing his mind and he was in 1865 committed to an asylum (mental institution). Semmelweis died there
only 14 days later, possibly after being severely beaten by guards.
Semmelweis' practice only earned widespread acceptance years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory
of disease which offered a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis' findings. Semmelweis is considered a pioneer of antiseptic
procedures."
See here for more information about Ignaz Semmelweis and his great contribution to the safety of childbirth
Dr. Tom Brewer is another one of the heroes in the field of childbirth. He too found an easy, common-sense solution to one
of the causes of unnecessary deaths in childbearing. He too endured a long fight against the unscientific medical opinions
of his day. He too got frustrated and outraged about the indifference of the medical profession, and wrote angry letters
on the subject. He too was defamed and ridiculed, as are many of those who would carry on the fight after his passing. It
is my hope that the truth will win in the end, no matter how long it takes for that truth to become obvious and accepted by
the medical community and the society at large. May that day come soon.
In the meantime, I am heartened by the fact that hundreds of birth professionals have joined our registry of supporters of
the Brewer principles. They are from 13 countries and 49 of the US states. They include NDs (naturopathic doctors), DOs
(doctors of osteopathy), including one who is a FACOOG (the DO version of an obstetrician/gynecologist), PhDs (including a
nutritionist), an MPH (Masters in Public Health), MSWs, CNMs, MSNs, RNs, LPNs, DEMs, CPMs, LMs, doulas, and childbirth educators.
I am especially encouraged by those who sent me notes along with their requests for being listed on the registry. Many of
these notes told of their successful use of the Brewer Diet in their practices, and some of them had been seeing this success
for 30 years! It is so encouraging to know that thousands of women and their babies have been helped and protected for so
many years, through the teaching and guidance of so many highly educated birth professionals. It is so good to know that
even as we wait for a more positive perspective in the culture around us, there are so many birth professionals continuing
to patiently hold this candle in the darkness, and there will always be some women who will follow that light and continue
to quietly care for their own health through nutrition.
See here for the first page of the Brewer Diet Registry of pro-Brewer doulas, midwives, physicians, and teachers
See here for a timeline of the development of the Brewer Diet
See here to better understand the evolution of the mainstream medical perspective on nutrition and salt in pregnancy
See here for details on some of the research that supports Dr. Brewer's perspective, including many charts & tables
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